


Against his Will

by KinkMemeMary



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, forced to fuck, non-con, non-consensual bonding, slavers - Freeform, threats of mutilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-05-14 23:48:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinkMemeMary/pseuds/KinkMemeMary
Summary: Fenris, Anders, Hawke, and Varric are captured by slavers. Anders is an omega whose heat was a week away, but the stress pulls it forward.The slavers are intrigued by the peculiar blue glow both Fenris and Anders exhibited when fighting and decide to make them a breeding pair. Fenris is horrified and tries to protect Anders, but the slavers are ruthless. They want to not only force them to mate, but also to bond.Note: this is a DARK fic. While there will eventually be a happy ending, there will be a lot of pain before we get there. Read at your own discretion and be aware of the tags.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago I put this out as [a prompt on the kinkmeme](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/91059.html?thread=365945523#cmt365945523), but there weren't any takers. My mind comes back to it occasionally, and I guess I'm in a dark mood at the moment, because I need me some hard angst (and eventual comfort).
> 
> Although Anders and Fenris are forced to fuck by slavers, this is not a slavery fic and they will be freed. The majority or the fic will focus on the aftermath of how they deal with what happened to them.
> 
> Comments are love - please feel free to comment anonymously, or on the kinkmeme, if you don't want to comment logged in.

Fenris could have screamed.

To be caught so unprepared by slavers - ones who hadn't even deliberately set a trap! It wasn't even that they had been particularly skilled, there had just been so many of them.

His information had suggested a new group forming in the old slaver tunnels, so he had asked Hawke to join him to find out more. Ever cautious, Hawke had insisted they bring the mage for healing and Varric to disarm any traps, but none of them had expected the dozens of men and women who had faced them when they'd rounded a corner and stumbled into the slaver's pens.

They'd fought well, taking down many, but not well enough. Fenris hated to admit it, but when the mage had fallen to a heavy blow from a war hammer, they just hadn't had enough healing potions to keep up.

And now they were caught in the pens they'd come to destroy. All four of them were chained to the wall, and he and the mage had been fitted with magic-inhibiting collars - ones that unfortunately proved to work just as well on his lyrium abilities.

Anders had a bloody mat in his hair from the blow he had taken, but was conscious again, if dazed. He sat slumped on the floor.

"Can you stand, mage?" Fenris asked. He didn't know how they could hope to escape, but if they were to have any chance he needed to know who could still fight.

Anders shook his head, but said: "Probably. I don't know if that would be a good idea, though."

Fenris frowned. "What, is it more than just your head?" He moved closer - as close as his chains would allow - and crouched down.

There was a strange scent in the air - something under the blood...

His eyes widened. Fenris knew that scent.

"Why would you come out if you were so close to your heat?" he hissed, shocked but keeping his voice low.

"I wasn't," Anders replied, avoiding Fenris's gaze. "I should have had a good week before..." He swallowed. "Stress can pull it early." His eyes flicked to the door and then away. "I'm still not... but if you can smell it, then..."

The smell wasn't yet overpowering - it would be easy to miss - and Fenris understood what the mage was saying. He wasn't in heat, but he was close. If he stayed low - stayed seated to minimise any smells from his ripening arse - there was a chance it would go undetected. A chance, but only that - the ruse would not stand up to close inspection. And once the slavers realised that they'd caught an omega - once they knew how easily he could be pulled into heat...

Fenris tried not to think of it.

"It won't come to that," he said, with a confidence he didn't feel.

Anders laughed - a cracked and bitter sound. "Oh, good. I shan't worry any more then."

"What are you two whispering about?" Hawke asked. "Have you got a plan? I could use a plan right about now." He pulled uselessly against the heavy chains that held him.

A plan? If only. Fenris held the mage's eyes, wishing he knew how to assuage the worry there. Whatever he thought of the man and his foolish ideas about mage freedom, he didn't want to stand by and watch him be raped.

Fenris stood and moved towards Hawke, keeping his voice low.

"I don't know how we can escape," he said. "But if they come in, we have to try to keep their attention - keep them away from the mage."

Hawke looked over Fenris's shoulder, worried. "Is it that bad, his injury?"

Fenris shook his head. "I don't know, but that's not the worst of it. Hawke," he said, "I think he's very close to going into heat. I can smell it on him - they will, too, if they get close enough for long enough."

Hawke stared. "Shit," he said, in a tone that showed he knew how little they could really do to help. "Right. Well. We'll do our best."

It wasn't long before their captors came to look at them again.

"Up, all of you!" barked one as she came in the door. She was a short woman, but her arms bulged with muscles and she had wielded a wicked axe in the fight. Her air of authority suggested she was in charge.

"Hey!" Hawke said, his voice overly loud. "I'm so glad you came. The rooms service here is appalling!"

She ignored him, looking over at Anders. "I said, _up_. We need to see what we've got." She gestured to the men behind her and they moved towards Anders, who was slowly struggling to his feet.

Fenris threw himself forward, pulling against his chains. "You haven't _got_ us," he sneered. "We killed half your people, maybe more. You think these chains will hold us?"

She looked unimpressed. "I think those chains are doing just fine." She jerked her head and another two slavers entered the room, taking Fenris by the arms and slamming him against the wall.

He was strong, but so were they, and with the chains limiting his reach and the collar deadening his powers, there was little he could do.

The other men reached Anders. One hauled him to his feet, and the other sliced through the lacings of his trousers with a dagger.

Shame swept over Fenris as he struggled against the hands that held him. Their little show of definace meant nothing at all. These slavers knew their business. Of course their first point of order was to check the anatomy of their captives. It wouldn't matter if they smelled the heat on Anders or not.

Rough fingers grasped the top of his own leggings and forced them down about his thighs. He tried to kick the invasive hands away, but it was no use. They found the small bump at the base of his cock that would form a knot when mating.

"Got an alpha, here!" the one groping him yelled triumphantly, giving his cock a little squeeze.

He could see Hawke and Varric getting similar treatment to his left.

"And another here," said a woman who was attending to Hawke.

But Fenris couldn't focus on that. Instinct tugged at him over his own violation - instinct that was responding to that whiff of musky scent that had drifted off of Anders. A scent both enticing and demanding - demanding that he protect the omega that others were pawing over.

"Nothing here," said the man with his hands on Anders' smooth cock. "Could be a beta, but... I've got a feeling..." the lecherous grin on the slaver's face was enough to make Fenris surge forward against his restraints again. He managed to wrestle one arm from his captors, swinging it wide before the chain caught and he was thrown back against the rock wall again.

Winded, he could only watch as Anders was turned roughly around and the lecherous slaver gleefully declared, "One way to be sure!" and shoved a dry finger into the mage's unprepared arse.

Anders made a noise like a sob as he was violated, but could do nothing to prevent it.

"Oh, we have a winner!" the slaver declared. "It's _lovely_ and moist in here!"

"No!" Anders protested as the slaver continued to wriggle his finger inside his arse. "Get off me! Get-"

The man put a hand over Anders' mouth as his companion restrained the mage's arms. He bent in and sniffed deeply at Anders' neck, then laughed. "You're not going to believe it, Mag, but I think it's going into heat."

Anders moaned in despair and Fenris tried to break free again, but was rewarded with a fist to his stomach that robbed him of air.

He bent double, struggling to breathe, and Fenris could hear a woman laugh. Mag, he supposed.

"Well, looks like we might get something out of this after all. Grab that one and bring it through to the other cell," she said. "I'm opening Gonnell's whiskey - not like he can drink it any more after what these pieces of shit did to him."

His captors released their hold on him, but it made no difference. Fenris couldn't have stopped them from taking Anders. He could only watch as they dragged the mage away.

 

***

 

The door closed behind the slavers, leaving Fenris, Hawke, and Varric in silence, with their pants around their ankles.

Varric was the first to speak.

"They - they won't..."

"Of course they will," Fenris said. Perhaps he should have lied to the dwarf and let him have his hope, but he could find no energy for it. This was his fault. He had brought them to these caves, without enough information, without enough preparation.

Hawke was pulling on the heavy iron manacle at his wrist. "We can still stop them," he said. "Varric - can you not pick the locks?"

"With what?" Varric asked, guilt and pain written across his face as he pulled his torn trousers back up over his arse. Varric was a beta - there had been nothing of interest there for the slaves to find. "Hawke," he said. "If I'd had anything, don't you think I would have tried? They took my tools from me along with Bianca." He sat down on the dusty floor. "I'm a shitty sort of rogue. A proper thief would have kept something up his sleeve, but..."

"You can't blame yourself," Hawke said, still pulling at the manacle, as though there was some hope he might force it over his large human fist.

"Stop it, Hawke," Fenris said. "You're only going to hurt yourself."

"I can't," he replied. "I have - I have to do something."

But there was nothing, nothing any of them could do.

Fenris followed Varric in sinking to the floor. Their eyes met in shared despair. In shared knowledge. Somewhere nearby the mage was being raped, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

 

***

 

That was what Fenris assumed. A natural assumption, perhaps. It wasn't uncommon for slavers to use any prisoner in such a way, and an omega was a rare prize. After losing half their people to Fenris and his friends, there was certainly no reason to expect unusual kindness.

Hawke had rubbed his wrists raw from pulling by the time the door opened again, and Fenris had had time to regret every unkind word he had ever said to Anders.

The man might be a fool and a mage, but Fenris had  seen enough in the last few years to know he was no magister. He was too soft, and whether Fenris liked to admit it or not, the man was too kind. He knew the work Anders did in Darktown for the poor and the refugees. And though he might be an abomination, whatever deal he had made with Justice, it clearly hadn't been for greed.

When the slaver Mag strode through the door of their cell again, he regarded her with sad resignation.

"You," she said, pointing at him. "Get up."

It grated to obey, but whatever came next it would be better to meet it on his feet.

"If you try anything, we will kill you," she said, as one of her men stepped forward, sword in hand. "A breeding pair is worth something, and that blue glow the two of you had when you were fighting - I reckon there's something there that people will pay for - but make no mistake: we've got another alpha - we don't need you if you're too much trouble."

Fenris stared at them. _A breeding pair._ They wanted... they wanted him and Anders...

Hawke spoke before Fenris had managed to process her words. "Did you hurt him?" he demanded.

Mag snorted. "Not yet," she said, then turned to another of her men. "Bring him," she said, then walked away.

They hadn't hurt Anders. Or, well, they had. But they hadn't raped him. They wanted to breed him. They wanted Fenris to breed him.

Relief and fear and disgust roiled in Fenris's mind, and he struggled to focus as the slavers came to release the chains that tied him to the wall.

This time, he didn't fight. He watched. He watched the man with the sword, hoping for a moment of distraction.

He let himself be led down the corridor until they came to a door with a barred window at head height.

Mag surprised him by thrusting him against the door and holding him there while she spoke. Anders was a huddled shaped he could half see through the bars. "There," she said. "That's your mate, now. If he's not in heat now, he soon will be, and you're going to take him."

"No!" Fenris yelled, the cold iron of the bars pressed bruisingly against his face. There wasn't going to be a good chance. He had to fight now.

Throwing his weight back against Mag, he managed to dislodge her, but it was no victory. There were at least four men with her - he didn't know how many came at him, but he landed back against the door, hands pinning him in place.

"Yes," she said, unflustered by his display. "You'll fuck him. You'll breed him. And then you'll bite him."

A shiver ran through him - she couldn't mean... It was too cruel. A bite to Anders' scent gland would bond them forever, but you didn't need to bond to breed.

"No," Fenris said again, his voice breathy.

" _Yes_ ," Mag replied. "You'll bite him and you'll bond him and we'll have ourselves a nice, randy breeding pair."

"You don't need to do that - you-"

"Of course I don't," she said. "I don't need to do anything. But any fool knows bonded pairs breed better. And you're both so _unique_. Exotic. I told you. I intend to get my money's worth for the trouble you've caused."

"I won't do it," Fenris insisted. "You can't make me do that to him."

She laughed. "What, because you're a fighter? We've seen your spirit - but you don't want your friend hurt, do you? And here's the thing about omegas: they really don't need all the bits they have. In fact, in some places they'll pay more for an omega that's been _tidied away_. You know..." A hand reached down, over Fenris's hips to his crotch, running over his cock. "Without these bits in front you boys are so proud of." She squeezed, and laughed again as Fenris tried uselessly to pull away.

The horror of what she was suggesting. That she would mutilate a man so casually.

But of course she would. She was a slaver. Him? Anders? They weren't people to her any more.

And she was right. The value of an omega slave lay in his arse, not his balls and cock.

"I see you understand," Mag said. "Get him in there and let them get on with it."

The door opened, and Fenris stumbled as he was pushed inside.

The smell in the room was unmistakeable. He didn't need to meet Anders' eyes to know he was already in heat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris tries to talk to Anders about what the slavers have planned. Anders doesn't want to listen. They both try to resist, but are forced to submit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned: this chapter features rape and is pretty brutal. Neither Anders nor Fenris want what happens and even though they might experience some pleasure as part of the effects of the heat, this is not intended to be presented as consensual for either of them.

Anders was naked. They must have stripped him once they got him alone.

He was huddled in the far corner of the dirt-bare space, breathing hard. His face was pained with the needs of his heat.

The mage jumped when Fenris moved.

"Don't," he croaked.

The smell of ripe and ready omega filled the room, and Fenris knew that Anders must be able to smell him, too, but the mage was resisting his instincts.

He swallowed, drawing on the cool steel of control he had built for himself in his years of service to Danarius. The horror of the slaver's threats echoed in his mind: _here's the thing about omegas: they really don't need all the bits they have_. Fenris couldn't allow Anders to be mutilated by his inaction, but he also didn't want to take the mage by force.

He struggled to his feet, and saw Anders do the same - pushing back on his corner of wall for support.

" _Don't_ ," Anders said again, his eyes wild with fear.

To have someone look at him like that was like a physical blow. He couldn't - he would _never_ do what Anders was imagining. Not of his own free will. But here in this small room, could he avoid it? Could he lie to himself that he had no blame?

He spread his hands wide. "Anders, we need to talk."

The mage shook his head. "I'm - I'm not an idiot," he said. "I _know_ what they want you to do." His face twisted into a grimace and a tear trickled down his cheek. "But you don't have to do it."

"I don't want to," Fenris said, taking a slow step forward. The man was so panicked right now - if he could just get Anders to listen. Maybe it would help if it were Anders' choice - if he knew what the choices were.

Anders made an noise and hunched in on himself, as though he could burrow back into the rock behind him. "You don't have to," he said, more tears spilling down over his cheeks. "You _don't_."

"They'll hurt you," Fenris said, his own voice choking in his throat. "I don't have to do it. I won't if you say no, but Anders..." his mouth worked around the words before he was able to force them out. "But Anders," he said, "the things they say they'll do..."

"If they hurt me, then they hurt me," Anders said, defiance in his eyes. "But you don't have to."

Fenris closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn't think he could do it - not if Anders refused - but the mage didn't understand. "The things... the things they say they'll do..."

The hot, enticing scent of omega was choking the air, and despite himself, some parts of Fenris's body were responding. His skin felt prickly and sensitive and he wanted to step forward into that scent - to bury his face in Anders' hair and inhale. His stomach was sick with revulsion, but his traitorous cock still stirred.

It wasn't right. He couldn't take someone who was cowering with fear.

"Then stop them," Anders said. "If they want to hurt me, then you _fight back_. You don't do it yourself!"

He was right - of course he was right. Fenris's muscles trembled with the warring impulses inside and a sob rose in his tight throat.

The door slammed open. "Fuck this shit." Mag's voice, as disgusted with them as Fenris was with himself. "Maybe you thought we were lying, elf, but you'll find I'm a woman of honesty and little patience."

Before he could turn, she slammed into him - knocking Fenris to the ground at Anders' feet.

"Push them together - I'm not having this," she said, and rough hands pulled Fenris up while another man reached across him for Anders.

He could hear the noises of the mage's struggle, and his screaming: "No! _No!_ " but there were too many slavers for them to fight when neither of them had any powers.

Someone grabbed Fenris by his hair and he reached back to scrabble at his captor's arms. Blood welled beneath his nails as they scraped down his attacker's skin, but it achieved nothing.

Anders was thrown down on the floor, and Fenris was forced down atop him.

The hand on his head forced his nose up against the mage's shoulder, his forehead colliding painfully with the metal collar.

Someone else slammed down on his hips, mashing his hardening cock against Anders' arse.

The pain was exquisite, and for a moment all Fenris could do was pant opened-mouthed, strangling the scream that threatened to escape his throat.

"Breathe deep, elf," Mag said. "Let the heat take over. This part doesn't have to be hard for you."

Fenris was frozen with fear and pain. He'd been here before - forced to fuck for someone else's entertainment - and he couldn't do it. He knew they'd hurt the mage now - he believed it - but he couldn't do to someone else what had been done to him.

Anders had stilled beneath him, ceasing to struggle, and the thick scent of his heat was unavoidable. Fenris moaned wordlessly. His cock was hard, pressed against Anders' flesh, but he couldn't move. He couldn't do what they wanted.

"You think that's enough?" Mag said to one of her companions.

"I think so," said another, deeper voice. "Look at his eyes - he's not there any more. Reckon he'll rut if we let him up."

 _I won't. I won't. I can't_.

And he didn't. When the pressure eased he didn't move - not to rut and not to fight. He couldn't.

Mag groaned. "Just... stick it's cock in the other one's hole and have done. They'll get going once it's started."

They forced him back to a sitting position. He should have fought. He should have lashed out. But he couldn't move.

Anders did fight, but weakly. His heat was on him and he hadn't the strength to really push back.

Fenris's cock was wilting - the memory combined with the present horror simply too much.

"He's going limp," one of the men said. "Think maybe we broke him."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Mag exclaimed.

Someone gave his cock a couple of perfunctory tugs and Fenris made a panicked noise - at last moving, struggling weakly to get away from that touch - but he felt boneless, ineffectual.

And then Anders spoke: "I'll do it," he said. "I'll do what you want. Just please - please don't hurt him any more."

That wasn't right. He should have been the one to protect Anders - he was the alpha.

A gentler hand replaced the other on his cock. The touch was soft and stimulating, in spite of the pain.

"It's alright, Fenris," Anders said, his voice quiet, and Fenris met his eyes. "I'll do it. It's alright."

He shook his head, tears falling out of his eyes even as his cock hardened and his head filled with the scent of ripe omega again.

"Right, good," said Mag. "That's better. Now sit on it like a good little boy."

Anders closed his eyes, but he nodded. He turned around, and he lowered himself gingerly onto Fenris's cock.

Hot wet warmth engulfed his member as it throbbed with both pleasure and pain.

"There," Anders said, his voice broken with tears. "I did it. You can leave us, now."

One of the men snorted. "You know you have to move a bit to get it to work."

"I _know_ ," Anders said. " _Please_ \- you're not helping! Can't you see you're not helping? Please, just leave us alone!"

Mag grunted. "Well, it's a start, anyway," she said, standing. "See that you do it proper, though."

She stood and left, and her people left with her.

They were finally alone. And his sore and throbbing cock was buried deep within the mage.

Anders took one of Fenris's hands in his and squeezed it. "It's OK, Fenris," he said. "It's OK. You were right. We just have to do this, it's nothing." He breathed deeply and sighed it out.

"It's not nothing," Fenris managed to say.

"Well, no, but..." Another deep breath, another deep sigh. Anders settled back against him, his warm, moist arse shifting about Fenris's cock and making him moan softly. "We'll take it slowly - try to forget where we are. And the longer it takes... the more chance someone will come..."

Anders reached up a hand into Fenris's hair and pulled his head down over his scent gland.

He didn't know. Anders still didn't know the other thing the slavers had told him to do. If he had he never would have pulled Fenris's mouth so close to his shoulder.

But perhaps Anders was right. It didn't need to come to that. Not if rescue somehow came before the bonding was forced upon them. He wondered how long they could make this mating take.

"I should have protected you," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

Anders shook his head. "You couldn't. You were right. I just... I have to fight. I had to try."

In spite of the pain and the fear, Fenris found he was starting to calm. He breathed deeply of Anders' scent. A mage omega in heat, submitting to him. It was heady. In another time or place, it would have been an honour.

There was a change in Anders' breathing, too. His skin was flushed, and he moaned as he leaned back against Fenris.

"It's not how I would have wanted it," the mage admitted, with another little moan, "But it does feel good. To give in." Anders' hand in Fenris's hair twisted lazy, stimulating patterns across his scalp. "I feel like the string of a lute that's been pulled too tight." His anus contracted about Fenris's cock and the elf gasped. "I was trying so hard not to be soft - not to be weak."

Fenris pulled the mage tighter against him and Anders grunted with pleasure. He wrapped his arms about Anders, and then his legs, too.

"I want to protect you," he whispered, running his nose along Anders' shoulder.

"Mmm," Anders murmured, holding Fenris's hands against his chest.

"I want you to fuck me," Anders said, and the muscles of his arse closed down about Fenris again, making them both gasp. "I don't care if it's what they wanted," Anders said, his voice breathy now. "I want to feel you moving inside. I _need_ to feel you moving inside."

"You say that now..." Fenris said, remembering the fear in Anders' eyes - the mage kicking and screaming and begging to be free.

Anders' hands squeezed his. " _Don't_ ," he said. "Don't ask me to think about it. Not right now. Not now that it's happening. _Please_."

Fenris blinked away tears. He was right. They had to follow through. _He_ had to follow through. Anders had agreed to this for his sake, and the only way to delay the bonding or mutilation that had been promised was to see it through.

"Shhh," he soothed, trying to take on something of the role he should have had - as comforter and protector.

He kissed Anders through his hair, on his ear, lightly on his shoulder. The mage started to relax back into his heat again.

He moaned. "You feel so good inside me," he said. "I want to feel you moving. I want to feel your knot."

Fenris wanted to feel Anders moving against him, too. He pressed up against the mage's arse, bringing them both to kneeling, then slowly he begin to move.

Anders gasped as the hot, hard length of Fenris's cock moved in and out of his body. He was wet inside and though his hole was tight, Fenris moved smoothly inside him.

He peppered kisses along the mage's lightly freckled back and traced a hand down low to stroke the omega's smooth cock.

"You're large for an omega," he whispered, and was delighted by Anders' response as he thrust up into his hand.

"You like that," Anders said.

"Yes," Fenris gasped. Surprising, but he did. He'd thought he'd wanted his partners small and unthreatening, but he could feel the power in Anders' body and was surprised to find that he liked it. He liked that Anders was taller than him, broader than him - even that he was well-muscled, for a mage. His partner was powerful, but not overpowering, and that was a definite turn on.

 _Independent_ , he realised. _The mage is independent. Like me._ Which made it all the worse that he'd been made to submit against his will, but there was nothing either of them could do about it now.

His hips started to move faster, building a rhythm, and he forced himself to slow. As awful as it was to be taking pleasure in a man who didn't want this, they had to drag it out as long as they could, while still convincingly tending to Anders' heat.

Fenris changed to long, slow thrusts that made both of them groan, pulling them along the edge of pleasure.

But the body of an alpha seeing to an omega in heat could only be held back so far. The stimulation felt too good, and under the stimulating pressure of Anders' rim, Fenris's knot began to swell.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," exclaimed Anders, as his sphincter stretched wider in another long, slow thrust.

"Mmmmm," Fenris murmured in wordless agreement.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" the mage exclaimed as the knot at last pushed in and Fenris hilted himself to the deepest extent.

He went to pull out again, but the mage's arms on his held him fast. "No, stay," he said, his voice high and breathy. "Stay right there - stay right there!"

Fenris hadn't wanted to knot the man - it would leave them both too vulnerable, but with the warm wet pressure of an omega all about him as he begged to be speared, he couldn't say no.

His knot expanded to its final extent in a rush of pleasure, and Fenris was coming, his hips pumping and jerking as he spurted wad after wad into Anders' arse.

Anders was making a high-pitched keening noise, and Fenris knew that he was coming too.

It was good and it was terrible, but for one white hot moment of overstimulation, Fenris couldn't think of anything at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they sit tied together, Fenris tries to talk to Anders, but Anders isn't ready to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anders' reflections on what has happened reflect his emotional state and are not intended as an objective judgement.

Anders sat, breathing deeply in the aftermath of his orgasm.

Fenris was still inside him. Locked inside him by a knot that felt as large as a fist. Every now and then it twitched with dull echoes of Fenris's orgasm.

They'd both come, but he didn't think either of them had wanted too. There was some kind of strange comfort in that. Whatever their differences, Fenris hadn't wanted to rape him, and Anders had certainly never wanted to lower himself on top of a man who was frozen with fear.

A shudder ran through him at the memory, and he felt Fenris stir.

"Anders," the elf said, his deep voice rough with some feeling Anders wasn't sure he was ready to discuss.

"Not yet," he said, squeezing one of Fenris's hands where it lay in his lap.

"Anders, there's something you-"

" _Please_." He was ashamed by the tremor in his voice - just talking seemed to bring reality closer to crashing down around him with the full force of what had happened. "Please - I can't, I - just give me a moment."

Fenris lapsed into silence, and Anders cursed himself. He didn't want to be this _weak_. He wished he could hear Justice, but the collar had silenced his companion as surely as it had stifled his magic. Joining with the spirit had given him the spine he'd always lacked on his own. Justice would never have allowed this to happen. Justice would have fought off his attackers and saved him and Fenris both.

But Anders wasn't Justice. He was just a weak, stupid mage who had allowed himself to be captured when he was too close to heat.

Fenris shifted slightly, and Anders felt the still-hard length of his cock moving inside. The tantalising remainder of his heat made it feel like a good thing. It was also an awful thing. An invasion. But could he complain? He'd got on that cock all by himself. He'd feared Fenris would attack him, or succumb to his alpha instincts, but he hadn't. From a certain perspective, Anders was the one who had turned the beating they'd received into a rape.

Heat flooded his face and his breath became a gasped sob.

Fenris's arms tightened around him, and he clung to them.

"I'm sorry," Fenris said. "I should have protected you."

Anders shook his head, but couldn't speak.

"I don't want to hurt you further," Fenris went on, his voice close to Anders' ear, "But there's something you need to know."

" _No_ ," Anders managed to sob out. "I can't - I can't do this - I can't talk about it. Please - _please_ , just... just let me be..."

He heard Fenris take in a breath to speak, then he sighed it out again.

It must have been hard for him - to have a crying mage sitting on his cock and sobbing, but once he'd started, Anders couldn't seem to stop.

He never would have admitted it to Justice, but he'd longed for the kind of physical human intimacy that had ended when he'd accepted the spirit into his body. No one had lain in his bed. His heats had been spent alone in his bunk, Justice unable to understand the strange wet needs of his body, trying and failing to not be frustrated at the time that was lost to their cause.

To finally be together with another person, and to have it be like _this_.

It was too much.

Anders was crying softly when the door banged open again, making him jump.

Fenris's arms closed about him, and his legs, too, as though to offer a protective layer of limbs.

"No!" Fenris said to the woman who had forced this upon them. "I won't do it. I won't let you hurt him!"

Anders was too tired to understand what was behind the new awful thing Fenris seemed to know was coming. They'd already mated - what else was left?

The woman who seemed to be in charge gestured to another, who stepped forward and forced Fenris's head back from his shoulder.

"It's not done," she said, letting him go.

The first woman sighed. "You must like pain," she said, looking past Anders to Fenris. "Well, I'm a woman of my word." Another gesture, and two men moved forward, grabbing at Fenris as the elf tried to hold Anders against his body and kick out with his legs.

"No! No!" he was shouting, but the slavers were unmoved, and with his cock stuck inside Anders' arse, it was really no fight.

Eventually they managed to grab hold of his feet and arms and legs - peeling them away from Anders while Fenris's muscles strained against them.

Anders tried to protect himself - pushing and kicking at their attackers - but the motions pulled against where he and Fenris were joined and the elf cried out in pain. One of their attackers pinned his legs beneath her and another grabbed his arms.

The one sitting on his legs drew a knife from her belt and held it low against his torso. There was a sharp prick and a thin trickle of blood where the blade cut in, just above his cock.

"Now?" the woman with the knife asked.

"No!" cried Fenris, and pain flared in his shoulder.

Anders screamed in confusion. It hurt like a neck cramp and a dog bite and and a small fire burning in his shoulder all at once. But at the same time an electric current of arousal shot down his spine to his groin. He was in agony and bliss and he had no idea what had happened to cause it.

His vision blurred and blood rushed in his ears - dimly, he heard people talking, then his arms were released, and his captors moved away. But he couldn't focus on them over the mixed pain and pleasure that radiated out from his shoulder, from his...

From his scent gland.

He knew what this was. Fenris had bitten him - given him the bonding mark.

His cock was growing hard as blood rushed south and his sphincter was clamping rhythmically down about the elf's cock - as though to milk that member for every last drop of come that remained. Anders fought through the haze of sensation and desire to peer back over his shoulder and look at Fenris.

Fenris who was now his mate. Really his mate. Bonded. Forever.

Wide green eyes stared back in shock, as though the elf couldn't believe what he had done.

Blood discoloured his teeth, and a little ran down his chin.

"I- I'm sorry," Fenris managed to say. "They were going to hurt you - they - I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Tears blurred his eyes. The words didn't explain it - how Fenris could do this - how could he bond them together in this moment of violation and rape?

And coursing through his disbelief and pain, Anders couldn't ignore the waves of heady need that were pulsing through his body now.

His arse squeezed spasmodically about Fenris's cock. Behind him the elf was gasping in heavy laboured breaths. His own cock was hardening and his back arched, pressing into Fenris, his skin sensitive to every place that they touched.

He wanted desperately to pull free and run away and find somewhere to be alone, but his body responded to another, overwhelming need. Moans came unbidden to his lips and he didn't push away when Fenris's trembling fingers pulled him close.

With the knot holding them fast, Anders couldn't get enough friction, so his hands reached down and began fisting his own cock in a wanton, clumsy hold.

It shouldn't be like this - it wasn't meant to be like this.

He didn't know if Fenris was moaning or sobbing - noises were blurring into one and all sensation across his body seemed to come together in a crescendo as he tugged and tugged and tugged on his cock until finally, he came.

He didn't know if Fenris had come. Anders' whole body was buzzing with sensation, making it hard to tell one thing from another.

What remained of his strength left him. He collapsed into the loose circle of Fenris's arms, and together they slumped to the floor.

"I'm sorry," Fenris whispered.

Anders didn't respond.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue comes, but too late. Hawke and his friends find Fenris and Anders in a lot of distress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most graphic elements of the story are past, but there's still some discussion of rape and general dealing with severe trauma.

Anders and Fenris lay together in shock for what felt like an eternity - aeons. Saying nothing. Doing nothing. Barely even thinking.

When his knot finally deflated, Fenris made a noise. It was a relief, but to his over-stimulated and abused member the change was also painful.

"Mage," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Anders said nothing, but pushed roughly away - out of Fenris's arms and off his cock, which slapped wetly against Fenris's balls.

The mage fell forward on his hands and knees, breathing hard. Then, without looking at Fenris, he crawled away - back to the corner of the room where Fenris had first found him.

An animal need made Fenris want to pull him back - to hold his mate close and share this time together. But Anders was right. They had nothing to share that was good. Only pain and violation and betrayal.

He should have found a way to explain to Anders what the slavers had planned. Even if it had been hard for the mage to hear, he should have known. It should have been his choice. What Fenris had done was unconscionable, unforgivable. And now he was bound forever to the man he had done that to.

Fenris stumbled over to the other corner of the room.

His cock was cold from the moisture drying on it - a cruel reminder of what had happened and what Fenris had done. He wiped at it with his hands, but that just transferred the sticky mess to them.

He rubbed his hands on his thighs until finally it reduced to dry grey bits of nothing.

Then he sat and stared blankly at the walls of their cell, too exhausted to think.

 

***

 

Varric had tried three other cells before he found the one with Anders and Fenris.

Hawke had called out to Anders when he saw them through the door, but if the mage had responded, Varric didn't hear it.

He bent to the lock and applied his picks.

It was a miracle that their friends had found them.

Before setting out, Hawke had gone looking for Isabela in the Hanged Man - she was always good for giving slavers a thrashing - but the pirate had been out visiting Merrill, so he'd left her a note. When Merrill and Isabella had returned a few hours later, the pirate had recognised the name of the slaver gang. She'd known the group was too large for the quick hit Hawke had planned. So the women had set out, pulling Sebastian along for the ride.

The rogues and the slender elf had been able to sneak most of the way through the tunnels, and when they'd been forced to fight, they'd benefited from the work Hawke and his friends had done earlier to cut through the slavers. When they made it through to the main pen and freed their friends, the five of them had made quick work of the ones who remained.

They'd found the stash of weapons and armour the slavers had taken relatively quickly, and Varric had been glad to have Bianca back where she belonged. But the search for Broody and Blondie had been a sombre affair. They knew whatever they found couldn't be good.

It took a bit of jiggling, but Varric felt the tumblers click into place and the lock turned.

"There we go," he said, and stood back to let Hawke go first.

They were barely in the door before Fenris was on them.

Unarmoured, unweaponed, and naked from the waist down, another elf might have been easy to defeat, but even without his lyrium powers, Fenris was strong and fast. He got a solid punch on Hawke and had pushed all of them back out into the hall before Varric even realised what was happening.

"You can't have him! You can't touch him!" Fenris was screaming. "He's _mine_ \- I'll kill you! He's mine!"

Varric realised their mistake. "Hawke, get back!" he yelled.

"I'm... trying... _Maker_ , Fenris! It's _me_ , calm down!"

Hawke managed to grab hold of Fenris's arms. "It's _me_. Hawke," he said. "We're not going to hurt you, we're here to rescue you."

But Fenris didn't seem to hear him. There was a wild look in his eyes and he kept trying to break free of the larger man's hold.

"Separate them," Varric said to the others. "It's 'cause of the heat. This is alpha bullshit. Hawke, you're not helping!"

A blast of magic made Varric's head ring, but it did the trick of dazing the two alphas. Merrill pushed Fenris back into the cell and closed the door.

"Varric's right," she said. "Hawke, you need to get away from the door until we can calm Fenris down. Who knows what's happened to them."

Blinking as his head cleared, Hawke nodded. "Alright," he said. "Alright. I'll, umm, I'll see if I can find Anders' clothes. He's naked in there."

Varric nodded. "Good."

They waited until Hawke was around the door and out of sight before gingerly opening it again.

Fenris had sunk to his knees in the middle of the room, understanding and sorrow written in his red eyes.

"It's OK, Broody," Varric said, edging closer with slow steps. "Whatever happened, it's over."

"No," Fenris said, his voice broken and hollow, "it's not."

Varric looked back and forth between Fenris and Anders. He wanted to tell himself he didn't know what had happened here, but that was a lie. Mag had told them her intentions, and then she'd thrown an alpha in with an omega in heat. Perhaps he'd hoped Fenris would resist, but he was a beta. He didn't really know what it was to be an alpha trapped alone with an omega in heat. Perhaps Fenris couldn't be blamed, but it was certain that Anders would never forgive him.

The mage was staring blankly off to the side, holding his legs to his chest, the wet trail of tears on his cheeks.

Sebastian and Merrill moved towards him while Isabela stood guard at the door.

"It's alright, Anders," Merrill was saying. "Hawke's going to get you some clothes, and then we're all going home."

"What happens in a heat is beyond your control," Sebastian said, crouching down beside the mage. "The Maker-"

"He doesn't want to hear about the _Maker_ right now," Isabela said, gruffly.

Varric had turned his attention back to Fenris when Merrill uttered a small gasp.

"Oh, Anders..." she said. "That can't be."

Fenris's eyes closed in a wince, as though he knew what the blood mage had found.

Varric looked towards Anders, but Merrill and Sebastian blocked his view.

"Maker!" Sebastian swore. He looked to Fenris. "You didn't... you can't have..."

There was a shift in the air. Varric needed to see what Merrill had found. He started to cross over to Anders, but then the mage pushed her roughly back.

"Get off me! Get _off_ me!" he shouted.

And now Varric had a clear view of him again, and he saw. Not just the bruises and the tear stains or the way the man was trembling, but the blood-smeared wound on his shoulder.

A bite mark. A bonding mark.

"You _bonded him?_ " Sebatsian said, and Varric wasn't sure if it was disgust in the man's voice or shock. Perhaps it was both.

Fenris hunched deeper in on himself, burying his face in his hands.

"He did _what?_ " This now from Isabela, crossing towards Anders from the doorway.

"Hey now," Varric began.

Isabela pushed Sebastian aside and stared. When she looked back, there was fury in her eyes. "You _bastard!"_ she cried. "I've defended you! I-"

It seemed like everyone was shouting except for Fenris, who was crouched in on himself and very still, and Anders, who moaned wordlessly in distress.

Varric put himself between the pirate and the elf as Isabela charged towards him.

" _Stop!_ " he yelled. "Everybody just _stop!_ We don't know _what_ happened here, but I know that _this_ isn't helping. You want to help Anders? You help Anders! I'll deal with Fenris."

Isabela glared at him. "This is worse than rape, you know that, don't you? This is forever. This is..."

" _Not_ something you'd think Fenris would want to do, right?" Varric said, hoping he was right. Aware of the man crouched behind him - a man who was clearly also in distress. "Does it _look_ like Fenris wanted this to happen?"

Anders' low moan degenerated into sobbing.

"No," Isabela said. "What it looks like is _alpha bullshit_. Just like you said. He couldn't help himself, and now they'll both suffer." But she turned away and went to Anders, pulling him into her arms.

Sebastian and Merrill held still a little longer, then Merrill crouched down beside Anders, and Sebastian went to the door. "I'll see if Hawke has found his clothes," the Chantry brother said, and left the uncomfortable scene behind.

Fenris had curled in on himself. He didn't look like a proud warrior or a dangerous rapist. He hid his face in his arms, rested on his knees.

"What happened?" Varric asked, keeping his voice low.

Fenris shook his head and didn't look up.

"Is Isabela right? You... just couldn't help yourself from mating a mage for life?"

A shudder ran through Fenris's body, but he said nothing.

"Right. Because that's what you've been laying awake in that mansion of yours dreaming about, is it? Binding yourself to another mage."

That got him. Green eyes glared at Varric from beneath white fringe.

" _Never_ ," he hissed.

"Then what happened, Broody?" he pressed.

Fenris rested his forehead on his arms, and it seemed at first as though he'd lapsed into silence again. But finally, he whispered. "They would have hurt him. They were going to hurt him, but..." The tight muscles of Fenris's arms bunched and released. Bunched... and released. Anger contained. Useless.

Varric's eyes dipped to the metal about Fenris's neck. "And you couldn't fight them off, huh?"

Fenris said nothing, closing his eyes.

"They wanted this," Varric said. "'A breeding pair'." He'd thought the woman just meant for them to fuck, which would have been bad enough, but... This?

"Well," he said, "shit."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders is freed from the magic-suppressing collar. His magic returns, and so does Justice.

Anders was grateful to get his clothes back, but uncomfortable to have an audience as he dressed.

Having been naked for hours, it was odd to become self-conscious at this point, but somehow the normality of being clothed again brought home everything that wasn't normal. Everything that would never _be_ normal again.

Isabela and Merrill turned their backs, giving him some privacy to change in, shielding him from Fenris's view. As though Fenris hadn't seen him naked already, hadn't been inside of him. As though there weren't now an unspoken bond between them that made him want to go to Fenris, even as the thought repulsed him.

He couldn't understand why the elf had done it. He supposed the slavers had made some kind of threat, but it had happened so quickly... He could have asked Fenris. He should have asked. But his mind skirted away from the idea. Instead he picked at the strangeness of it like a fresh scab. Fenris hated mages, and if he didn't hate Anders in particular, then they certainly weren't friends. He knew Fenris was unnerved by the Justice, and he'd called Anders an abomination on more than one occasion.

And when Varric had asked Fenris if he'd wanted to bind himself to a mage, he'd said _never_. _Never._ As though the very thought was revolting.

Heat burned in Anders' cheeks, and his fingers trembled as they struggled with the buckles of his coat.

 _He doesn't want me. He bound himself to me, but he doesn't want me_.

Anders closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. He was bound to a man who didn't want him, but if he thought too much about that right now, he'd break.

Slowly, the trembling eased, and he finished fastening his coat.

"I'm done," he said to Merrill and Isabela. "Let's go join Hawke and Sebastian."

Isabela nodded and led the way, with Merrill following behind, as though they were guarding him.

He stole a glance at Fenris. The elf's eyes were downcast and his face unreadable as he donned his armour. Varric was helping him, and gave Anders a sad smile as he passed.

Anders looked away.

Was that how his friends would be, now? It was nice to be the one protected for once. He'd always felt a bit of an outsider. Isabela seemed to resent that he wasn't the same carefree soul he'd been in the Pearl. He'd tried to befriend Merrill, but she never seemed to appreciate his advice. Sebastian always seemed only a hair's breadth from turning him in to the Templars. Aveline was friendly but cool, as though the guard in her was always waiting for him to become a problem she had to deal with. Only Hawke and Varric seemed to genuinely enjoy his company. So it was strange to find himself protected now.

Strange, and not entirely comfortable. He didn't want to be pitied. He felt exposed - like everyone had a window on what had happened to him. He could see in their eyes that it was all they could think about. His rape, and what had happened after.

When they got out into the hall, Isabela took out her lockpicks. "Time to get that thing off you," she said, looking at the heavy metal collar that encircled his neck, inhibiting his magic.

"Uh, is that the best idea?" asked Sebastian.

Isabela glared at him, and Anders stared.

"What," he said. "you think it's nice to have the mage under control, do you?"

"No, no!" he held up his hands. "I just meant... you're... companion... I thought perhaps he might not find what happened here entirely... just. Perhaps, if we waited..."

Oh. Justice. He hadn't thought of that. He was so used to the spirit sharing everything with him. Being present in every moment, in every thought and feeling. Had Justice been aware of what had happened? Could he be raging, unheard, inside Anders, waiting to break free?

"I'm not sure he knows what's going on," Anders said.

"Do you think he'll respond well when he finds out?" Sebastian held his eyes until Hawke spoke.

"It doesn't matter," said Hawke. "I'm not leaving Anders a prisoner any longer. Isabela and I will take him off into another room, away from Fenris. If Justice acts out, then, well, we'll deal with that. Probably best if you stay here, Sebastian."

There was a hard look in Hawke's eyes. Sebastian looked away from it, and nodded.

Hawke led the way to the next cell along, and Isabela applied her picks to the collar.

"It's a tricky one," she murmured. "We might need Varric... ah! No, I've got it!"

Anders heard something click, and then Isabela pulled the ends of the collar apart.

It was like colour and noise came back into the world. Everything felt more vibrant - more alive. He could feel the mana in his veins singing as it connected him once more to the Fade.

He breathed deeply to control the rush.

And then Justice was there - throwing himself to the fore like a beast released from a cage. Anders staggered and his skin cracked with white hot lines as it struggled to contain the spirit.

" _What happened?_ " Justice asked with Anders' voice and lips and tongue. " _Where are they_ _?_ "

He turned about, looking for slavers that were now dead while Anders' exhausted mind fought for control.

 _They're gone, they're gone - we're safe now_.

Justice took hold of Hawke by the shoulders and thrust him back against the wall behind him. " _Where are they? The one's who attacked Anders._ "

"They're dead," Hawke said. "We killed them - as many as we could find."

Justice stared deeply into Hawke's eyes some moments more, then released him. The spirit retreated a little, looking inward now to check on Anders.

 _I'm fine_ , Anders tried to tell him, but the lie was unconvincing to the spirit who shared his mind.

Justice found his head wound; the bruises on his torso, his arms, his legs; the tearing at his anus; and the bite wound at his shoulder.

 _They're dead_ , Anders told him quickly, but Justice knew as soon as he thought it that not all these wounds had been done by the slavers. He saw Fenris in Anders' mind - saw what he had done, felt those wounds be made again. _They made him,_ Anders thought at Justice, and this time they both felt the truth. _He never would have wanted this - he hates me_. And tears rose again in Anders' eyes as he owned it to himself.

Justice found the new connection - stretching out like an umbilical cord of longing from the wound in Anders' shoulder.

 _What's this?_ The question echoed through Anders - more as a sense of curiosity and worry than words.

 _I don't really know_ , Anders confessed. _It's one of those messy, mortal things you find distracting_. _It means I need him now. Please don't hurt him._

He could sense that Justice didn't understand. That he was mystified by the fact that Anders was now bound to someone else, as well as himself.

_You need him, as you need me._

_Not in the same way, but yes._

_Then I shall not harm him. For now. But neither shall I allow him to hurt you any more._

Intense relief washed through him. Not only because Justice had agreed not to hurt Fenris, but because he knew, in that moment, that he had the spirit's protection once more.

 _I missed you_ , he thought, and felt Justice's calming presence wrapped around him like a blanket.

He opened eyes he didn't remember closing. "It's OK," he said to Hawke, who was watching him closely. "Justice understands. He won't hurt you, or Fenris."

"You're sure?" Hawke asked, concern in his eyes.

Anders shrugged. "Well, not unless he does something else. Justice can feel the bond," he explained. "He knows that hurting Fenris would be hurting me, too."

Isabela whistled. "That's fucked up. You should be able to cut him up into little pieces for this."

"I don't think he... I think they made him, somehow," Anders said, grudgingly.

"That's what they all say, sweet thing - that they had to do it." she said, putting her picks away. "But it's always a lie - there's always a choice, and he made his."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His clothes restored to him, Fenris turns his mind to vengeance.

Fenris felt a little better once he was clothed. And he somehow resented that. As though the comfort of clothing lessened the punishment he felt he deserved.

He was still sore. Several colourful bruises were forming brown rings and blotches that he was sure would become darker as the day wore on. And his abused cock rested uncomfortably in the tight confines of his leggings.

At least he had no fear that the mage would want to heal those pains.

They had taken him, the mage. They had taken his mate away. And he had let them.

His stomach had lurched as Anders had walked through the door with Isabela and Merrill. He'd wanted to follow. To pull Anders to him and cement their bond. To touch and smell him - to learn what their scents smelt like together. To protect him from any other alpha who might dispute Fenris's claim.

But he hadn't. That would have been wrong.

Instead, he'd let Anders go and allowed Varric to help him on with his armour.

"Did you kill her?" he asked, when at last they were done.

"Kill who, Broody?" Varric asked, frowning.

"Mag," he said. "The one in charge. The one who..." The one who had threatened him. The one who had wanted to castrate Anders. The one he wanted so badly to blame for what had happened.

"I'm not sure, Broody," Varric said. "Probably. We killed a lot of slavers today, I can tell you that much."

 _Probably_. Probably was not enough.

Fenris straightened his shoulders. Killing was something he could do.

He strode out into the hallway and nearly careened straight into Hawke and Sebastian.

His eyes met the other alpha's and a wave of aggression washed over him, his skin prickling as tiny hairs rose. But Hawke held up his hands and stood back. "Let's not do this right now, OK, Fenris? For Anders' sake."

The mage. Yes. The mage was why he felt like this, but he didn't want to fight Hawke. And now that the sense of immediate danger was passed, he could master the primitive urge to attack anyone who might challenge him over his omega.

"Did you kill her?" Fenris said to Hawke. "The woman who did this. Who forced me..." His mouth stumbled on the words. He couldn't form them. _The woman who forced me on him. The woman who made me rape him. The woman who made me bond him_.

They were too terrible, those words, and he was terrified that they might be lies. Could he truly say he was forced? The decision had still been his.

"She called herself Mag," he said instead, and saw recognition in Hawke's eyes.

"The leader?" he asked. "Short but well-built? Dark hair - fought with an axe?"

Fenris nodded. He remembered the axe from their first fight.

"Yes," Hawke said. "I killed her. They were in a room down there - drinking and playing cards."

Rage rose in Fenris again and he pushed past Hawke, their shoulders connecting with a force that sent the larger man spinning into the wall.

"She's _dead_ , Fenris." Hawke's voice followed him.

He didn't care. He had to see it. Perhaps he could kill her again.

The first room he passed the door was open, and he could see Anders inside, so he left it well enough alone. But after that he threw each door open with force, as though he might change what happened through sheer force of anger and strength.

He did not notice that the lines of lyrium burnt into his skin had begun to glow blue. He welcomed the fire running in his veins, stoking the rage in his heart.

When he found the room with the dead slavers, the recognition hit him like a shock of cold water.

He hadn't known what he would do when he saw them. Try to kill them again? Render them limb from limb?

But he did not. He swayed in the door way and the light in his brands guttered out.

He knew them. This one had held back his arms while that one had grabbed his left leg. That one had scratches on his arm - Fenris hadn't noted his face, but he remembered struggling against him before he was thrown onto Anders, sprawled on the floor.

And the woman with the blonde hair, who had held a knife above Anders' cock before Fenris had given in and bonded him. Someone had slit her throat; it didn't seem like enough.

Then, there was Mag.

He knew her form by shape even before he saw her face. Her eyes were open and her expression slack. The neck of a broken bottle lay beneath her bloodied hand.

Fenris staggered over to her and knelt, careless for the blood and corpses that surrounded him.

The bloody wound to her chest would have been made by Hawke's sword.

Fenris ran his hand down it, her still-warm blood coating his fingers.

"I should have had this," he said, in a broken voice, his throat choked with tears. "I should have felt her heart in my hands as I crushed it."

He balled his bloody fingers into a fist.

He could still have done it - reached into her motionless chest and squeezed her heart between his fingers - but what would have been the point? There was no vengeance to be found here. Just the mocking truth of her silence, her stillness.

Dimly, Fenris heard mutters and motion behind him. He turned to find the mage looking down on him. On Mag. His cheeks were red from tears, but his face was as still as the bodies that surrounded them.

"They're dead, then?" he said. "Good." For a moment, their eyes met. "Come on. Let's go."

The mage turned and walked away. Numbly, the cooling blood dripping down his fingers, Fenris rose and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies to those who wanted Mag to die a messy on-screen death. This story is more about Fenris and Anders dealing with what's happened than it is simple revenge. It you want to read about Fenris giving some arseholes what's coming to them, [A Mage Scorned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9671585/chapters/21845921) has recently got to the bloody vengeance stage.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They head back to Kirkwall, and Anders and Fenris face some decisions they are not yet ready to make.

The walk back to Kirkwall was long and awkward.

Anders had healed himself soon after he'd been freed from the collar - everywhere except the mark on his neck. Justice had wanted to to fix that, too, but Anders held back. Too many confused emotions arose at the idea.

Certainly, it was tradition. Most people couldn't afford the services of a mage to heal something like that, and at some point it'd become romantic not to.

There was nothing romantic about what had happened to him and Fenris, but after all these years, to be bonded to someone - an unthinkable prospect in the Circle... He had lost so much in this. Perhaps he didn't want to lose that, too.

Or it could be that healing the bonding mark into a smooth white scar would be somehow sealing the deal. Not that anything could undo the bond once made, but the idea had an element of finality in it that Anders couldn't bring himself to accept.

Everything else - from the bruises on his skin to the tears inside - Anders healed them away. If he could have healed away the memory of the slavers' touch, he would have done that, too.

He could have done the same for Fenris. The strange new connection between them drew Anders' eyes back to the elf regularly, but there seemed to be a mutual understanding that neither wanted to talk.

Anders was never sure if Fenris wanted his healing magic anyway. He rarely protested, but the man was so adamant about the evils of magic in general that Anders doubted he'd want such an explicit reminder, in this moment, that he'd bound himself to a mage.

But the further they walked, the more obvious it was that Fenris was in real pain.

He made no complaint, but his gait was stiff, and as they neared the surface Fenris was developing a pronounced limp.

Then Anders remembered. Not just how hard Fenris had fought to keep the slavers off him, but his cries of pain as the struggle had pulled against his knot. And there was the rough treatment Fenris had received when the slavers first tired to force them together. This was more than just the ordinary scrapes and bruises of a fight. Who knew what damage had been done there.

The sudden realisation that he'd neglected his mate left Anders breathless, stopping him in his tracks until Merrill's concerned look brought him back to the present.

He forced a stiff smile across his face to forestall Merrill's pity, but watched Fenris more closely from then on. As they paused to breathe fresh air in the dying light of the sun, Anders walked over to him.

"Come on," he said. "Let me heal that."

Fenris's eyes widened and he stepped back. " _No_. Mage, you... you do not have to do that. I can manage."

"No, I don't have to. But you can't really intend to walk back to Kirkwall with that kind of injury - you won't make it."

Though his face was still and stiff, Anders read panic in Fenris's eyes. His voice was choked as he said: "You... do not. You should not..."

He could feel the eyes of the others upon them, and Anders realised he couldn't talk too explicitly about the kind of injury Fenris might have received with everyone else listening.

"Would you give us some privacy?" He was asking them all, but looking directly at Hawke. "We can't talk properly with all of you standing there gawping."

"Are you sure?" Hawke frowned.

"Yes," Anders replied, forcing himself to repress the impatience and frustration he felt at being treated with such kid gloves. "I'm sure. The slavers are dead back there in those tunnels. Nothing else is going to happen to me - to either of us. I just want to..." He sighed. "Just - just give us a moment, OK? Please?"

Hawke nodded, and he and the others retreated away.

When, Anders turned back to Fenris, the elf's eyes were wary. "Look, you're not walking back to Kirkwall with a broken cock," he said. "So let's just get this over with, shall we?"

"I do _not_ have a broken cock," Fenris hissed. The light was low enough now that Anders couldn't tell if Fenris were blushing, but he could sense the man's embarrassment.

It was a strange conversation to be having, and a half-hysterical urge made him want to tease the po-faced git, but Anders resisted.

"Right," he said instead. "You're limping for the fun of it. Being pulled around by those shits while you were tied to me barely affected you, is that it?"

Fenris avoided his gaze. He opened his mouth as though to speak, then closed it and shook his head.

"Do you object to my using magic on you?" Anders asked, bluntly.

"No," Fenris replied, his eyes still firmly downcast.

"Then don't be a martyr," Anders said. "I'm tired and I want to go home, and we're not leaving you here no matter how much you think you deserve it. You've bonded me now," he added. "You don't get to hurt yourself just because it pleases your sense of drama."

That made Fenris look up, and the misery in his eyes almost made Anders regret his words.

Almost. What he'd said was true. He was too tired to for this. For all of this.

"Do what you must," Fenris said, and Anders stretched out his hand and let his healing magic flow.

He didn't need to touch Fenris, for which he suspected they were both glad. But there was no avoiding the intimacy of the examination. Any healing involved feeling out with magic to find what was wrong in a body, before fixing it.

And there was much that was wrong with Fenris. Tired and aching muscles. Bruises up and down his limbs. A cracked rib. The ever-present burning thrum of lyrium humming throughout his body where it had been carved into his skin.

But the strongest centre of pain emanated from the man's crotch. It might be an exaggeration to say that Fenris's cock was broken, but it had certainly been strained. Heavy bruising was flowering around the base, and Anders could sense tiny tears in the tissue that, though they might heal on their own, were likely very painful, and certain to become more so if Fenris insisted on trying to walk the four miles back to Kirkwall without being healed.

Anders let his healing magic flow. None of the injuries on their own were that severe, and as he mended them he was aware of a shift in Fenris's posture that spoke of his relief.

"There," Anders said. "Now you can walk."

"Thank you," Fenris said.

Anders nodded and looked back to where the others stood waiting. "Let's get on. There's still a ways to go before we sleep."

 

***

 

The journey went a bit more smoothly now that Fenris was no longer limping, but it was still awkward. No one really wanted to talk. Everything they could have talked about seemed far too taxing.

The temperature dropped as night fell across the Wounded Coast, and Anders found the cool darkness something of a relief.

Entering Kirkwall was like stepping back into reality. Rest was closer, but the light of the lamps and the presence of Templars seemed to show every challenge that Anders now had to face too starkly.

He was bonded to a man who hated magic. Would they be able to make any kind of a life together? In _this_ city? Did he even want that? Did he have time to deal with Fenris as Meredith clamped down on what little freedom mages had, and their cause became ever more desperate?

Hawke stopped near the steps that led to Darktown.

"Maybe this is a dumb question," he said. "But... where do you want to go, Anders? Do you want to go home to the clinic, or...?" He looked to Fenris.

Fenris's eyes went wide. " _No_ ," he said. "No, he doesn't need to do that. You - you can go home, you-"

It was like a punch to the gut - Fenris's rejection. Anders didn't even know what he wanted, but he was left with little doubt that Fenris did not want him.

"Now, wait - wait a second," Varric was saying. "I don't know too much about what it's like, for you alphas and omegas, but I thought... when you bond... don't you _need_ to spend some time together?"

Fenris was shaking his head. "No. No, he doesn't have to."

"He really doesn't," Isabela agreed. "You don't have to Anders. If you'd rather not be alone, you can come stay with me, or-"

"Perhaps," Sebastian hazarded, "If they don't... might the bond weaken?"

"No," Merrill said. "I'm sorry, but I don't think so. People sometimes think that, but Keeper Merethari said..."

Too many voices, all with an opinion about what he should do. Anders closed his eyes against them.

"Anders," Hawke's voice caught through the others. "You're a healer. Is it - is it possible to break the bond? Is it better to spend some time apart, or..."

Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, and Anders struggled to control his voice as he spoke, emotions choking him. "No," he said. "It's not. And Merrill's right. We, ummm, we really should spend this time together. It, umm..." his voice failed him and he rubbed the moisture away from his eyes, but everyone seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He made himself look at Fenris. "Sorry," he said. "It might not be what you want, but it'll be worse, if we try to spend this time apart. We're meant to - ah - our bodies need to attune to each other. We need to learn about each other. It'll help determine... how we'll be together."

Fenris looked away from his gaze. "If it's what you want," he said.

"I don't know what I want," he said. "I'm just tired. Let's just go."

"To the mansion?" Hawke questioned, gently.

Anders nodded. The bed in his clinic wasn't made for two, and he couldn't imagine Fenris wanting to go there.

Somehow, as they turned and set out for Hightown, things were even more awkward than they had been before.

 

***

 

The others left them at Fenris's door, with many soft murmurings of 'If there's anything I can do...' - as though there were anything anyone can do. No one wanted to leave him with Fenris, but they all seemed to feel it was his decision. He almost wished it wasn't. But what he'd said earlier was right. It would only hurt more to spend time apart now. They couldn't break the bond, but they could damage it - tarnish the way they felt about each other forever.

The air inside the mansion was stale and mildewy. Fenris lit two candles and passed one to him. The flickering light didn't do much to improve the place. Anders shuddered as he caught sight of a dessicated corpse from the corner of his eye.

"I'll prepare a room for you," Fenris said, as he led the way through the hall and up the stairs. "You - you don't have to share my bed."

Anders stopped dead in his tracks. "What?"

"You don't need to worry that I will touch you," Fenris went on. "What happened today, it won't happen again. I swear it."

The bottom seemed to drop out of Anders' stomach. Did Fenris not understand? Had he not heard what Anders had said earlier? Or did the thought of bonding with a mage disgust him so much? "Fenris," he said. "No, we need to - the bond..."

The man winced. "I understand. We must spend time together, and we will, but I want you to know that you don't have to fear me. I know I betrayed you - that you should have had a choice. You should at least have known what they threatened, but," he grimaced. "But I was a coward. And I didn't tell you. I did this to you. But I will not do anything else."

There was a finality to Fenris's words that robbed Anders of speech. And he remembered the sharp feeling of teeth biting down through his skin. He should have had a choice. He hadn't had a choice. A shudder ran through him. Numbly, he allowed himself to be led away from Fenris's bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders struggles with Fenris's rejection and the distant pressure of his heat, which is not yet gone.

The room Fenris led him to was cleaner than what he'd seen of the rest of the mansion, but very dusty.

He brought out a pile of extra blankets and pillows, but hardly looked at Anders at all. When he finally left Anders alone, it felt like the man was fleeing.

There were too many pillows - far more than any single person could use. And too many blankets - all clean, but some with holes. Perhaps this was a manifestation of the alpha instinct to create a den for one's mate, but instead of joining Anders in a carefully arranged nest, it seemed that Fenris had simply given Anders every item of spare bedding he had and left.

Sitting down amongst the pillows, Anders felt lost.

He tried to abstract away from the well of emotion - the rejection, the abandonment, the memory of hands touching him, stripping him, forcing him and Fenris together. If Fenris could resist the animal impulse to cling to his new mate, Anders thought, surely he could, too.

He had been raped. They had been raped. But it was just an event. A thing that had happened. A bad thing, but one bad thing among many. It was over now. He didn't have to dwell on it if he didn't want to.

The burning throb of the bite mark in his neck gave lie to these thoughts.

Anders cleared his throat and rubbed at it. Unbidden tears rose to his eyes.

He was bonded. Everything was different now. And though the numbness of shock had drowned out anything else for the past few hours, he was still in heat. The drive to fuck was very much muted, but his skin prickled with an uncomfortable sensitivity. The constant pressure of his clothes was an aggravation, and he knew that only the touch of an alpha could soothe the restlessness that filled him.

One alpha in particular.

 _His_ alpha.

This should have been the best heat of his life. He should be revelling in every caress, learning his lover's body as they became attuned to one another. Bonded.

But Fenris didn't want that.

And maybe he was right. Even as Anders longed for touch and mourned what should have been, phantom fingers reminded him of what _had_ been. The rough hands that had forced them together. Fenris still and unresponsive as Anders had lowered himself on top of him. Did he really want to relive that?

No. But they could have held each other. Shown kindness to each other. Been gentle where their captors had been cruel.

And Fenris had been the one to force this upon them. A sense of betrayal fluttered in Anders' chest as he remembered.

Why would Fenris do this to them if he had no intension of nurturing the bond? If he didn't want to sleep with Anders at all?

 _You should at least have known what they threatened..._ that's what Fenris had said. But he still hadn't told Anders what that threat was. Suddenly, Anders had to know. He had to know the reason that Fenris had forced this upon him with no intention of seeing it through together.

Taking the candle from the dusty surface of the dresser, Anders walked out into the mansion, in search of Fenris's room.

 

***

 

Fenris lay alone in the darkness of his room with only a thin sheet for comfort.

A tug of need made him want to go to the mage. The man's scent had seemed to grow stronger once they were alone, and it mixed with the familiar smells of Fenris's home in a way that felt... right.

He wanted to hold Anders close and bury his nose in that smell.

But he couldn't. It would be wrong. And too much had already been wrong today.

So instead he tossed and turned and tried to ignore the smell of a mate who was ready for him, to slow his pulse and stave back the blood that rushed to his mindless cock.

He could have taken himself in hand, but even the thought of that made him shudder. Was he to get off to the scent of the man he'd raped? No. He couldn't. He wouldn't. He would not allow himself to be like Danarius. Or like that slaver woman. If it was the very least he could do, he would leave Anders alone.

A noise in the darkness stilled him.

The shuffle of feet out on the landing. Anders.

Ruthlessly, he shoved down the hope that his mate was coming to join him in bed. Even if that was what Anders thought he wanted now, Fenris would not allow it. The mage wasn't himself - wouldn't be until his heat had passed - and Fenris refused to take advantage of that.

The flickering light of a candle preceded the mage to Fenris's doorway, where he paused, wearing nothing but his shirt.

"Are you awake?" Anders asked.

Fenris grunted and shifted up on his arms.

"Good," Anders said. "There's something I need to know. You, ah, you said they made threats. They were going to do something, and that's why you bit me. What was it?"

Fenris pulled a face. Just the thought made him shudder. "You don't need to know that, mage," he said, his voice soft. "You've endured enough today."

Anders' mouth twisted with some emotion, and he shook his head. "No," he said. "You don't get to decide that too. I _do_ need to know. You did this to me, and I have to know _why_. It's quite important, as a matter of fact."

Fenris closed his eyes. The mage was right, but how could Fenris tell him? How could he put something so awful into words? Every thing he thought to say felt too blunt, too hard, too brutal. "They said..." His voice trembled, and he paused to breathe deeply and sigh it out. "They were going to castrate you."

When he opened his eyes, Anders was staring at him, a hand ghosting down across the flat planes of his lower belly, just above his cock.

It was difficult to see the mage's face in the candle light, but when Anders nodded, it seemed stiff and pained. "Right," he said, then wiped at his eyes as though to brush away tears. "Right. OK."

Fenris wanted to ask him if he'd made the right choice, but the question died in his throat. It was too crass - to ask Anders to absolve him of blame when really this wasn't about him at all, and it should never have been his choice to make.

"Thank you," Anders sad at last. "I... uh..." He rubbed at his eyes again. "Thank you... I suppose," he said, then turned and left.

Somehow, those words of thanks only made it worse.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders and Fenris continue to be bad at emotions and communication. Hawke tries to help. He's not very good at it either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for continuing thoughts about the rape and Anders thinking about what might have happened if he'd been castrated.

When Fenris awoke the next morning, the mage was gone.

The half-hearted den he had prepared for Anders didn't even appear to have been slept in, and in the cruel light of morning he could see how careless he had been. It was a very sorry sort of den. And if he hadn't been able to stay with his mate as he'd longed to do, he should at least have left his omega with food and water.

He was a neglectful mate as well as a rapist. Of course Anders had left.

He sat down amongst the pillows and blankets of his inadequate den, and felt very small.

Small and foolish and unworthy.

He had never imagined that he would bond.

Danarius had fucked him and enjoyed watching him fuck other slaves, and his mind shied away from those memories even though he could not help but think of them - the only other experiences of sex that he could recall.

Slaves only bonded if their masters wanted the bond for some reason - usually only to ensure a productive breeding pair. But Fenris's marking had been carved into his skin to make him a better fighter, not so he could be bred. He'd never even thought to share a heat with an omega, and hadn't dared to think beyond his master's death now that he was free.

He didn't even really know what he should do as an alpha.

Protect his omega - yes, he felt that overwhelmingly, but he had already failed spectacularly at that.

He had some notion that wealthy alpha magisters created elaborate dens for their mates and showered them with gifts. That was not possible, but still, he thought - looking at the holes in one of the blankets he had given to Anders - he could have done better than this.

But he was just a stupid slave - unworthy of bonding with anyone, let alone a mage.

And he hated himself more for thinking like that. For thinking of himself as a slave; for feeling lesser than a mage. But in this squallid and tumble-down mansion, with the memory of Anders sobbing in his arms while they were knotted, it was hard to think of anything else.

He felt unclean. Disgusting. And yes, unworthy.

Of course Anders had left.

 

***

 

Having walked to his clinic in the middle of the night, Anders gave up on the idea of rest.

He was tired - exhausted, really - but no part of him wanted to lie down alone and think about how his mate had turned away from his bed on the night they had bonded. Or Fenris's revelation of what the slavers had threatened him with in order to force the bond.

In an abstract kind of way, he was grateful to Fenris. If he dwelt on it for too long he could see in his mind's eye the visceral horror of what might have happened.

What burning, exquisite pain would it have been, to be castrated while still knotted on someone else's cock?

Again and again his hand drifted down the the spot where the blonde slaver's knife had pricked his skin, low on his belly, as she waited for the order.

The tiny wound had been healed away hours ago, but he could still feel it.

No. He could not face staring into the darkness with nothing to distract him but those thoughts, and the empty longing that filled him whenever he felt along the bond that still tied him to Fenris.

He could feel Justice's concern for him, but both of them knew there was nothing the spirit could do to help. So instead, he cleaned.

He boiled rags for bandages and he swept the floor and he prepared potions from his supplies of elfroot until he ran out of bottles.

Eventually the sun rose and filtered through the sides of the clinic that were open to the air, and he lit his lantern, inviting the poor of Darktown to come to him for healing.

Anders blessed every cut and scrape and cough that came through his doors for the welcome distraction that it was.

 

***

 

It was late morning when a note arrived at Hawke's desk to tell him that Anders had been seen in Darktown.

The warrior had been dithering about whether he should check in on Fenris's mansion. Ordinarily, it would be unthinkable for another alpha to call upon an alpha seeing to an omega in heat, let alone if the pair were bonding. But this was no ordinary heat, and no ordinary bonding.

He wanted to respect Anders' wishes, but the idea of leaving an omega alone with someone who had taken him by force - no matter what the circumstances - did not sit well.

A boy with scabbed knees and crooked nose came to his door clutching a note he no doubt couldn't read, and Bodahn had sent him away with a copper. The message came from Tomwise, the elf who sold potions in Dartown. It seemed that despite agreeing to depart with Fenris the night before, Anders was now in Darktown, with his clinic open, despite still being in heat. Tomwise was understandably concerned, and had reached out to Hawke, knowing they were friends.

Whatever misgivings Hawke had about leaving Anders with Fenris, it seemed that Anders was more than capable of getting into a worse situation on his own.

Hawke set off at once.

 

***

 

Anders received more than a few funny looks from his patients as the morning wore on, but if they chose not to say anything, he was happy enough to ignore the looks and focus on healing.

True, his skin was very sensitive, and he could feel the flushed warmth of his heat, but it was relatively easy to squash down the desire to mate when any thought of doing so brought with it so many fraught memories.

Tomwise had been a bit of a pain. Anders had made enough potions in the night that he had plenty to spare, and as the elf was always happy to purchase surplus potions, it was a good way to earn money for the clinic that could be spent on more expensive items.

Unfortunately, the Darktown alchemist had made a bit of a fuss when he noticed the signs of heat and tried to foist a suppressant off on Anders.

Not that something like that would do any good against a bonding heat, but if Anders had wanted to use a suppressant he was sure he could have brewed something more effective himself.

Eventually the man had given up and left Anders to heal his patients, who cared more about what the Healer could do for them than any strange smells said Healer might be giving off today.

Hawke's arrival, however, was another matter.

He could smell the alpha's approach before he entered the clinic, the earthy musk of his friend being all too familiar to his heightened senses.

"What the blazes are you doing?" Hawke demanded as he burst through the door, not even pausing to greet him.

"Healing people," Anders said bluntly, before turning back to the sink in which he was setting rags to soak. "You've seen me do it before. You'll no doubt see me do it again."

"Oh really?" Hawke replied. "Has there been some emergency? Would dozens of people be dying here in Darktown if you didn't rush away in the middle of your _heat_ to tend to them?"

Anders turned round to glare. "Speak a little louder, Hawke. I think there's a Templar in the Gallows that didn't hear you."

Hawke blinked. "Are you under the impression anyone who's seen you today didn't realise you were in heat?"

Warmth rose in Anders' cheeks. "Well, if they did, they've all been rather polite about it. Certainly more so than some others I could name."

"Anders!" Hawke's forehead wrinkled with his disbelief, but then he sighed and stepped closer, lowering his voice. "This is dangerous. I'm grateful no one's tried anything with you, but you have to know this is a terrible risk. Any alpha who came in here could-"

"Oh," Anders said, anger rising in him now as he stepped forward, pressing close into Hawke's space. " _Any_ alpha? Are you going to try something, then?"

Hawke retreated. "What? No! You - you're bonded. You... you said yourself you wanted to go with Fenris - that it was important, for your bond, you said-"

"Yes. Well. Fenris doesn't appear to feel the same way," Anders bit out, and the truth of that statement suddenly made it hard to speak. He turned away, trying to master himself.

"Anders..." Hawke said, more gently this time. "What happened?"

He closed his eyes against the hot sting of tears. "Nothing," he managed to say. "Fenris... Fenris wouldn't even spend the night in the same room as me. So." He rubbed roughly at his eyes. "So I might as well be here, mightn't I?"

"Oh," Hawke said softly, and Anders couldn't make himself turn round to face the man, but he dearly hoped Hawke would take this cue to go. "Oh," he said again. "And you - you'd want that, would you? To be with him?"

Damn the man - Anders couldn't quite hold back the sob that rose in response to that question. "Of course I would," he choked out, making himself look back at Hawke. "You have no idea. Your parents bonded. Your father... That doesn't _happen_ in the Circle, Hawke. Or if it does you're sterilised. Or separated. It isn't worth the risk. So no, Fenris is _not_ who I dreamed of bonding myself to and what happened yesterday is not how I would have wanted it to happen. But someone _actually_ bonded me, Hawke and... and he doesn't _want_ me. So if you don't mind," he lifted a trembling hand to brush the tears from his face again. "If you don't mind, I'd like to at least spend my time doing something _useful_ and _distracting_ until the worst of this heat is over."

Hawke stared at him with a pity in his eyes that only stoked Anders' frustration more. " _Do you mind_ , Hawke?" he said, pointedly.

"Right," Hawke said. "But Anders..."

"I don't care," he said, pointing at the door. "Get out. I don't want to talk about this any more. I'm done. You might think you're helping, but you're making it worse."

Hawke opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again, shook his head, and swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"OK, good," Anders said. "You're sorry. Now get out." He turned his back on his friend and put his hands into the soapy water again.

It was only as he heard Hawke's footsteps retreating that he realised how badly he was trembling.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke goes to Fenris's mansion to talk some sense into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one to help get things moving in the right direction.

By the time Hawke reached Fenris's mansion he was slumped in front of the empty fireplace in the hall, two-thirds of the way through a bottle of wine.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Hawke yelled as he crossed the room.

Fenris hunched in on himself. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He couldn't think of anything he could do to make the situation any better, but he did know that everything he had done had made it worse.

"Do you know where Anders is right now?" Hawke asked.

Fenris shook his head. "No," he said, quietly."He left in the night."

"He's in Darktown," Hawke said. "He's in Darktown. In heat. And he has his blasted clinic open, where anyone might walk in and take advantage of him."

That made Fenris look up. "He's...?"

"He's healing people in his clinic, when he _told_ you he wanted to be here with you. To bond with you. So I'm going to ask you again: what the fuck are you doing?"

Fenris stared. "But he doesn't want to bond with me," he said, feeling more lost and confused and guilty than ever. "He left. I didn't even know he was gone until the morning. I... my den was inadequate. And I have hurt him enough. I cannot force him to be here and I would not wish to."

Hawke was looking at him as though he were incredibly stupid. Perhaps he was.

The larger man folded his arms and sat down across from him. "Yes. You have hurt him. More than enough, and that means you have a responsibility. Like it or not, _you are his alpha_. And you did that. Not him. And no, you shouldn't force him to be here, but you also shouldn't drive him away. Whatever you think of him personally, you have a duty to take care of him. You don't have to fuck him if you don't want to - and frankly I think that would be pretty unwelcome right now, but you should at least make sure he's safe and comfortable and not... not working himself to the bone trying to forget that he's bonded to an alpha who hates him."

Fenris's stomach sank. Hawke was right, he was failing Anders terribly, but... "I don't hate him," he whispered. "I tried to... to make him feel safe but..." he shook his head. "But I don't know what I'm doing. I know my den was... not good enough. But I do not know how to make one correctly. I..."

Hawke was frowning. "You made him a den."

Fenris nodded.

"But Anders told me you wouldn't even spend the night with him."

"I - but... he can't have wanted me to do that. Not after... not after everything I did. I would not put him through that."

Hawke was staring now. "Maker, you two are bloody hopeless, aren't you?"

Fenris didn't know what to say to that.

Hawke closed his eyes, shook himself, then opened them again. "So. Let me get this straight. You made Anders a den, but you left him to sleep there alone, and you want to know what you did wrong to make him leave?"

Fenris shrugged awkwardly. "I didn't think it any great mystery, after everything that happened. But..."

Hawke waved off his hesitant explanation with a sigh. "Look, you think Anders left because you didn't make a proper den or something, right? Well, without even looking at it, I can tell you one thing you left out of this this den of yours: _you_ were supposed to be in it."

"But... but I... I violated him, Hawke. He - he cannot have wanted my touch. He..."

Hawke took the open bottle of wine off the table and took a long drink. When he put it back down, he spoke: "I don't know the details of what happened between you in that room and I don't know that I want to know. I doubt Anders is feeling particularly amorous at the moment - if he were, I don't think he could be down there working in his clinic like everything is normal, despite the fact you can smell his heat half-way across Darktown. But I don't think he blames you for it. The thing he seems most upset about, right now, is that you bonded him, and as far as he can tell you don't even want him. From his perspective, you wouldn't even share his bed to see him through his heat.

"If he's wrong about that - if you do want him, or even if you just want to do right by him - you need to go to Darktown, right now, and explain. I mean, Andraste's knickers, Fenris, you know Anders. If you don't tell him the truth _he is going to_ assume the worst. And given a chance he'll look for a way to martyr himself over it. Which is exactly what he's doing right now, working himself to death so he doesn't have to think about the fact that, as far as he's aware, you don't want him."

It took a few moments for Fenris to absorb Hawke's words. "So... you think he does want me to be there." He repressed the foolish giddiness that rose at the thought that his mate might not actually hate him after all. He refused to get carried away by such a feeling. There was a world of difference between the thought that Anders wanted to be tended to in his heat and the idea that the mage might actually welcome him as a mate.

"I do more than think, Fenris. _I know_. Because I asked him. And I would strongly encourage you, next time you don't know what Anders wants, to do the same."

"He wants me to be there," Fenris repeated, as though saying it could help him understand that it might be true.

"Yes."

Fenris's heart beat stronger in his chest. "Then I should go to him."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders and Fenris finally talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for memories of rape.

Fenris hesitated outside the door to Anders' clinic.

Was it the bond, or merely his imagination that he could feel Anders just inside? Was his heart beating faster just because the mage was close?

Or was it the scent of Anders' heat? Hawke had exaggerated when he said it could be smelt halfway across Darktown, but certainly from here, Fenris could scent him, and feel something stir in his loins in response.

Again he questioned the decision to come. Whatever Hawke said, Fenris could not see how Anders could possibly want him. Not really. Not as more than the primal impulses of his heat, which Anders had clearly chosen to rise above.

"Are you coming in or not?" the mage's raised voice, heard through the doorway, seemed to answer his thoughts, and a spike of anxiety shot through Fenris.

But he entered, nonetheless.

Anders stood on the other side of the room, wiping his hands. The clinic was empty of patients.

"I wasn't sure you would want to see me," Fenris answered. "Hawke said..."

"Hawke is too nosy for his own good," Anders said, and folded his arms. "You've made your feelings clear. I'm not asking anything of you."

Fenris cleared his throat. "I'm not sure that I have."

"No?" Anders replied, stiffly. "You left me alone all last night because you're overjoyed to be bonded to me, I suppose."

"I didn't think you would want me there," Fenris said, hating how stupid and forlorn he sounded, even to himself.

Anders swallowed. "You didn't even want me in your house," he said. "You wouldn't have invited me if Varric hadn't pressed the issue. And I'm not an idiot. I know what you did for me. I... I don't know what I would have done, if... if they'd mutilated me. Like you say they were going to. So. Thank you for that. But," the mage's chin trembled, and he swallowed again before going on. "But you've made no secret, how you feel about mages. How you feel about _me_ and what _I_ am. You've called me an abomination - more than once."

It hurt to see his mate - the man he was bonded to - so visibly upset. He wanted to deny every word, and yet he couldn't say it was all untrue.

"At first," Fenris admitted. "I know I called you that - but not for a while. I did not know someone could exist as you do and not become one of those things."

Anders squeezed his eyes shut and grunted.

"I won't lie to you. It worries me." _It scares me_. "And I have been wary of you. It is not easy for me, to be at ease in the company of a mage. But I am not ignorant. I can see that you are not an abomination." _Not yet_ \- the thought rose unbidden, but was hard to deny. He knew that Anders deserved his compassion - that the mage was the wronged party - and he wanted very badly to protect him, as his mate, from further harm. But that deeply instilled unease remained, and he knew that Anders _was_ dangerous, even if he was not currently a threat.

"I'd like to believe that," Anders said. "But Varric asked you if you'd willingly bind yourself to a mage, and you said _never_. I could hear the disgust in your voice - how disgusted you are by what I am - by _me_."

The man was trembling now, his lips turned down in a grimace of distress. Fenris's instincts overcame him. He crossed the space between them, shaking his head.

"Oh no," he said. "No, no, no - that's not true." He remembered himself just in time before he touched the mage. After everything that he had done to Anders, he knew he couldn't do that.

" _Please_ ," Anders spat. "There was an omega in your house, in heat, all night - _your_ omega - and you didn't come to me. You didn't even want to share my bed. How _much_ must you - must you have dreaded my touch to - to resist that. You..."

" _No_ ," Fenris said. "That wasn't it at all. Mage - Anders - how could I go to you after everything I did? I - I _raped_ you," Fenris stumbled over the word - a flash of memory overcoming him, of being inside Anders as he wept. "You can't have wanted my touch, you - you..."

He closed his eyes against it, but the memory wouldn't leave him. His cock slapping wetly against his thigh when his knot had finally deflated. The mage crawling away into the farthest corner of the room, unable to even look at him. "You can't have wanted that," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.

"But you didn't." Fenris heard the words, but couldn't understand what Anders meant at first. "You - you didn't rape me."

"What?" Fenris said, opening his eyes.

Anders was frowning.

"But I - I..." he could feel that hot wet flesh around his cock, and the deep shameful knowledge of what he was doing, unable to resist his instincts as Anders brought him to climax.

"You wouldn't do it - you refused. Even when they were hurting you. You - no - I was the one," Anders said, his eyes wide and red. "I was the one who got on top of you when you didn't want it. When you said no, and..." He was trembling again. "If anyone raped someone... it was me. I was the one - I..."

"No," Fenris stepped forward again, wanting so badly to take the mage in his arms and comfort him - to comfort his mate when he was in such distress. "That wasn't your fault. They made you do that."

Anders laughed - a high, shaky thing. "Oh, but they didn't make you, is that it?"

"I..." He didn't know any more. It was so hard to think clearly - the mixed scents of Anders' heat and his distress all around him now.

Anders sniffed and rubbed at his eyes. "If you didn't want to be with me after that, I understand, but... I couldn't stay. Not - not when I knew how much... how much you didn't want me."

That pulled Fenris out of his daze. "I do want you," he said, and he made himself meet Anders' eyes. "I do, but I didn't see how you could possibly want me. And I - Anders I don't want to force on you anything else that you don't want to do. Never again. But," he took a deep breath, "but Hawke said I should ask you, if I didn't know what you wanted, so please, tell me, Anders. Tell me so that I know: would you welcome my touch? Would you want me in your bed?"

Anders held his eyes, and it almost felt as though the air shimmered between them in the intensity of his gaze. "Of course I want your touch," Anders said, his voice breathless. "You're my mate."

The mage moved forward to kiss him as though drawn by an unseen force they had both resisted for too long, and Fenris was only too glad to lean into that attraction as well.

Anders' lips against his were soft, but forceful, and the sensations that passed through him in response were almost too much.

He reached up for the taller man's neck and revelled in the touch of skin against skin, his cock already hardening in his leggings. And Anders was fumbling with his armour, trying to find the buckles to release him from it.

In frustration, he broke from the kiss. "Please - help me - take this off. I need you."

Fenris began fumbling for the buckles himself, but - "Wait, shouldn't I... aren't a supposed to make you a den, I -"

"Later," Anders said, undoing his coat and tossing it aside. "I need you now, please, here."

He didn't need to be asked again, but pulled roughly free of his armour as Anders tugged at the laces of his leggings.

He was already so hard it was a relief when his cock was freed, and he stepped forward to take Anders in his arms again, shoving roughly down at the mage's trousers.

Anders moaned and sank to his knees, pulling them off the rest of the way, then reached up to pull Fenris after.

The scent of heat and discharge was strong now, and as Anders parted his legs for Fenris he could imagine being between them once again - his hot hard cock speared into that warm moist hole and...

The memory hit him like a blast of ice water, leaving him gasping. He hadn't touched that space between Anders' legs, but he could feel the wetness and warmth against his cock and suddenly he was gagging and trembling and pushing himself away.

"What's wrong?" Anders asked, as though from very far away.

"I can't, I can't - I'm sorry, I can't."

Humiliation. Guilt. Violation. Everything felt so very wrong, and yet he knew he was letting his mate down - Anders wanted this so badly. He needed it.

"I'm so sorry," he gasped.

Warm arms closed about him in an embrace - but comforting this time, not amorous.

"Shh - shh, it's OK."

Someone was stroking his hair. "It's OK, it's OK. You don't have to. I should have thought. I should have thought, but I was so caught up, I..."

"I'm sorry," Fenris muttered again.

"You don't have to be," Anders reassured him, rocking him in his arms. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"I do want this," Fenris insisted, but it was like all the energy had fled him, and he was limp in Anders' arms. "I do, I just-"

"You don't have to explain," Anders said, and kissed his head through his hair. "I understand - you don't have to explain."


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders opens up to Fenris about some of the other things he's feeling.

Fenris calmed in the circle of Anders' arms.

He was furious at the tears that had fallen hot on his cheeks. This weakness was unforgivable - to have told Anders he wanted his touch, and then have refused when it came to the most important thing an alpha had to do: to fill him when he was in heat and make him feel safe.

If he could have run away and hidden his shame he would have. But he couldn't abandon Anders again.

They now lay together on the packed earth of Anders' clinic. One long, strong arm held him close against the mage's body.

There had been no time to admire the man's body when the slavers had thrust them together before. And afterwards, when they were tied together, any thought of attraction or physical amorousness had seemed anathema.

But Anders was muscular - surprisingly so, for a mage. Muscular and lean. Not at all like Danarius, who would have shuddered at the thought of physical labour. It was a matter of pride, for a magister, to rely either on his magic or his slaves for anything he should need.

Anders had neither slaves nor servants. His clinic was bare, but spotless, and Fenris now saw that with no one to clean it but him, Anders did all the work of keeping it in order by himself.

And he fought. He had offensive spells, true, but he also swung his staff like a fighter. Fenris wondered if he chose to reserve his mana for healing and protecting his friends.

Whatever the reason, the arm that held him close was firm under its light dusting of golden-blond hair. The hand that held Fenris's hand was large and that was oddly comforting.

He felt safe in Anders' arms, and that was very, very strange.

Just as he was thinking this, Anders squeezed his hand and released him, rolling away.

Surprised, Fenris turned over and looked at the mage.

He still lay on the ground, but facing away from Fenris now.

Small, barely detectable hitches in breath disturbed the air.

"Anders?" Fenris asked, frowning. "Are you alright?"

A pause. "Fine," Anders said, his voice clipped.

Fenris moved closer, looking down on Anders over his shoulder.

His eyes were squeezed shut, the gleaming track of a tear ran over the bridge of his nose.

"You're not," Fenris said, laying down beside Anders, putting his arm around him and taking Anders' hand in his, as Anders had done for him. "Please tell me." He kissed Anders' shoulder. "So far, I have not been good at guessing."

He'd hoped perhaps to make Anders laugh, but the man just squeezed his eyes closer together and shook his head.

"Please," Fenris said, softly.

"It's nothing," Anders managed, but his voice sounded choked. "I've been selfish. It'll pass."

"No," Fenris replied, brushing stray hair back from Anders' face. "I think perhaps, you are much less selfish than I have given you credit for. Certainly less selfish than the mages I am used to."

Anders swallowed, but didn't open his eyes. "I should have realised," he said. "I - I wanted..." he began, but then his voice seemed to fail him.

Fenris bent and kissed his neck, just beneath his ear. "Yes?" he said.

"No," Anders replied. "No, I wanted that so badly. I wanted..." his chin trembled, as he struggled between emotions and words. "I wanted that stupid, special bonding heat that everyone talks about, and - and it's such a stupid thing to want. After everything. When you said..." Another tear tricked from his eye and over the bridge of his nose. "When you said you wanted me, I..."

"I do want you," Fenris said, squeezing his hand again. "I do, I-"

" _No_ ," Anders said. "It doesn't matter. I raped you. You refused, and I did it. I did what they said."

"I don't blame you for that," Fenris said.

"That's not the _point_! You've been so careful with me, and I just - I just-" He breathed in deeply and sighed it out.

Anders was still erect, Fenris realised. Still erect. Still in heat. Still in need.

"I can still help you," Fenris whispered. "I want to. There must be other things I can do. Perhaps..." He let go of Anders' hand and ran his hand down his skin towards Anders' cock. He didn't want the mage to be surprised, if that touch was not what he wanted.

Anders sobbed and quickly grabbed his hand to pull it back. "I'm not asking you to do that," he said, his voice broken.

"I _want_ to," Fenris insisted. "Anders, it wasn't that I didn't, I just... in the moment."

"I know."

He needed to take care of his mate. The aftermath of his own trauma clearing, he was aware again of the scent of Anders' need in the air. But he didn't know how to help. "Anders..."

"It's not about that," he said, cutting Fenris off. "I mean, yes, obviously I need that and - and I'm not thinking very clearly and... and it's partly about that. But it's also... in the Circle, people don't bond. It's a death sentence. And... and I never thought it would happen to me - never." He shifted against Fenris and wiped the tears from his face. "But sometimes you imagine... stupid things. Fairytale things. What if some powerful alpha takes me away and..." he cleared his throat. "And that _wasn't ever_ going to happen, but I had some... some fanciful ideas, about what it would be like and... none of this is your fault," his voiced faulted for a moment, but then he went on. "But I guess I just... I just need a moment, OK? To accept that... that isn't ever going to happen. And it was really, _really_ stupid, and selfish of me, to think that anything like that could come out of what - what happened to us. I just...

"You only bond once, Fenris. And... it's not like it was likely to have happened any other way. I thought that part of my life was over. It's just that... Suddenly it wasn't. And in spite of everything I had some silly ideas about what bonding would be like. And I just need a moment, that's all. I'll be fine, I just - I just need a moment."

It was a vision of Anders he hadn't expected - that he might have had some childhood dream of rescue through bonding. The man seemed so independent. Determinedly so.

And Fenris had never stopped to wonder whether mages were permitted to bond, or that the fact that they weren't would make it matter to the mage so much.

Fenris had never dreamed of bonding when he was a slave. If Danarius had decided he wanted his slave to bond with someone, it would have happened, but that hadn't been very likely.

"I never thought that I would bond, either," he admitted, quietly. "But I - I didn't have any ideas about what it would be like. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. But if you tell me, Anders, I'll do it." He pulled the mage closer. "It isn't that I don't think I'll be able to knot you. Right now, I don't think I can, but perhaps later I could. There must be other things I can do. I'll do anything you want. Anything. I just don't know what you need."

Fenris swallowed. "In Tevinter, the magisters shower their omegas with gifts and build elaborate dens. But I don't know what they do there. I don't know what they do when they are bonding. Danarius never seemed interested in that."

He looked over Anders' shoulder at the clinic. All he could see was stiff, bare cots. It did not look promising, but... "Perhaps," he said, "If I made you a den..."

Anders squeezed tightly on his hand. "No - no don't leave me," he said. Then took a deep, steadying breath. "I mean just - just not yet. I'll be fine, I just need a moment. Please just hold me," he said.

"Of course," Fenris replied. He lay back down beside Anders and held him close.

With his nose so close to Anders' scent gland he could breathe in and almost feel as though his mate was filling him up. Anders smelt good. He smelt _right_. And he knew that if there was anything he could do to make Anders feel safe - to make him feel wanted - he would do it. And if all Anders wanted him to do right now was to hold him, he could do that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris takes good care of Anders and they have some frank conversations.

Fenris held Anders for a long time. He wanted to help his mate to completion - with his hand, if nothing else - but with Anders having refused that once, Fenris didn't want to risk it again.

So he held him, and soothed him. Slowly, Anders relaxed in his arms, and eventually the strong smell of heated need began to lessen.

He leaned up to kiss Anders' shoulder, and glanced down at the human's cock. It was softening as his need eased.

When he looked back to the man's face, Anders met his gaze. He looked tired and resigned, but he snorted and rolled his eyes, as though somehow finding humour in the situation.

Then, grunting, Anders sat up, facing away from him, and Fenris followed.

"So, that's over, I guess," the mage said.

"Only for now," Fenris replied. "When your heat rises again, I will take care of you properly - I promise."

"I'm not asking you to do that," Anders said. "And I don't want you to promise something you might not be able to do."

"All I ask is that you let me try," Fenris said, and ran his hand down Anders' bare arm, making him turn and look. "I want to try. I want to make you a proper den and I want to take care of you." The rush of feelings that arose when he said those words let him know that they were right. He might not know what he was doing. This might not be the mate he would have chosen, but he wanted to do right by him. And just the thought of taking care of Anders and making him happy made Fenris feel warm - almost giddy.

"And please," he went on, continuing to rub his hand lightly along Anders' arm. "Tell me if there's something I should do. I really don't know what's expected, but I would not neglect you through ignorance."

Anders flushed a pretty pink colour. "Well," he said, looking down, almost demurely. "Um, let me see. I guess... it's important to make sure omegas drink enough - we need to drink more than normal when in heat, and eat more, too. But also we - that is, _I_ , probably won't be thinking clearly, a lot of the time. So, left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't eat or drink enough."

That made sense, and it was something he could do quite easily. Fenris pushed himself off the floor.

"Where are you going?" Anders frowned up at him.

"To get you something to drink," he replied. "And something to eat, if you have anything in. Where do you keep your cups? Over here?" He headed in the direction of what looked to be a little kitchen area. There was a table with various implements strewn across it and a basket underneath. To the side was a bucket and a water pump.

"Well, yes," said Anders, "but I didn't mean right _now_."

Fenris nodded. "Of course, but you've told me you may not be aware of what you need. You have not drunk anything since I got here. From the sound of things you were not taking care of yourself before I arrived. At the very least, you should have something to drink, and probably something to east as well."

Anders laughed, though his tone was somewhat disbelieving. "You're serious about this."

Fenris merely grunted, but found himself smiling as he heard Anders come over to join him. He bent to examine the basket. There was some bread and cheese, as well as a small range of vegetables. He took the bread and cheese and brought them up to the table, before turning to fill a cup from the bucket. "This water is clean, I hope?"

"As it happens," Anders said, "yes." He got up and stood behind Fenris as he worked, and Fenris's skin prickled pleasurably to feel his omega so close.

"Good," he said, and pushed the filled cup into Anders' hands, smiling as their fingers touched.

The mage looked at him a little quizzically, but drank the water he was given.

"Do you have any tea?" Fenris asked.

"I do," Anders replied, and leaned past him to move a pot down from one of the shelves above the table. His proximity  sent that same, warm shiver through Fenris again. "But you'll need a fire if you want to boil the kettle," Anders went on. "It'll be easier if I light it for you." The barest hint of a pause betrayed something of trepidation in Anders' voice. "Would that bother you?"

It took a moment for Fenris to realise Anders didn't intend to light the fire with matches. "You mean... with magic."

"Yes," Anders replied, a little something of challenge in his eyes. "With magic."

His mate was testing him - his honesty. His willingness to set aside his distaste for magic and accept that he was bonded to a mage. Something like disquiet coursed through him, but he was determined not to let Anders down again. It wasn't as though Anders had chosen this.

"Of course," he said, and he thought he did passingly well at keeping his unease from his voice. Though the "hmmm" Anders muttered as he went to light the fire suggested the mage was not convinced.

Still, he had given his permission, and Anders lit the fire - the barest flutter of magic skirting against Fenris's markings. He was forced to concede that it was more efficient than slowly coaxing a flame and feeding it until it had enough heat to be used.

He cut bread and cheese for both of them while they waited for the kettle to boil.

"Are you seriously going to do that naked?" Anders asked, as he pulled worn trousers up over his legs.

"I hadn't noticed," Fenris replied. Which wasn't entirely true - it was a little cold in the clinic - but dressing hadn't been at the forefront of his mind.

He wondered if Anders enjoyed watching his nude form - perhaps the mage thought he _should_ be dressed?

Fenris glanced over his shoulder, and was gratified to find Anders sitting at the foot of his bed, leaning back on his hands and watching at Fenris with an interested eye.

Perhaps Anders _did_ like looking at him.

Fenris subtly tensed the muscles of his abdomen to make them stand out, hoping that he was not being too obvious about doing so. He fancied he saw an appreciative smile cross the mage's face, before he turned back to the cheese and bread on the table.

When he had cut them both generous portions, he took one to Anders on a plate, then turned his attention to the kettle, which had just begun to whistle.

"Thank you," Anders said, and watched him as he went.

"I hadn't taken you for such an exhibitionist," the mage said.

Fenris looked at him sharply, but the twinkle in Anders' eye told him the mage was teasing.

"Not an exhibitionist," Fenris replied as he began to pour hot water into the teapot. "Merely practical. Clothes didn't seem necessary. If it bothers you, though..." He set down the kettle and made as though to go dress.

"No, no - that's fine," Anders said, grinning now. "I just thought you might be cold."

Fenris smiled back. "Perhaps a little," he admitted. "But the tea will help with that."

He took the tea to Anders, and was surprised when the mage made room for him on the bed. He grabbed his plate from the table and came to sit next to him, his thigh resting against Anders' own.

Anders was looking down at the place that they touched.

"Do you find me attractive?" The words were out of Fenris's mouth before he realised how bold they were. His cheeks burned with his own foolishness, but the question was out now. "Beyond the heat, I mean. Were you ever attracted to me before?"

Anders raised his eyebrows. "Was _I_ attracted to _you_? Of course I was! Before you opened your mouth and said that all mages were evil and couldn't be trusted and that you'd be _watching_ me, even though I'd just helped save your life."

Fenris remembered that night. Perhaps Anders had a right to be bitter. He didn't know that he'd even thought of Anders as a person, once he found out he was a mage. Not at first. The sudden spark of magic as they had been fighting was alarming. For a second he'd wondered if he were betrayed, and only the more pressing need to fight the slavers and shades who filled the mansion had stopped him from turning to confront his companions there and then.

Hawke had vouched for Anders, and that had mattered, but yes, he had continued to be wary.

"I apologise," he said. "It... has not been easy, learning to trust mages."

"Oh, you trust us now, do you?" Anders asked.

Fenris reached tentatively over to take Anders' hand. "I am here, aren't I?"

Anders avoided his gaze. "I can't imagine you found me attractive, before they forced you to bind yourself to me."

A part of him was a little annoyed. Was he not already doing everything in his power to show that he cared? That he wanted to stay by Anders?

But no, it was only the same question he had asked returned. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

"When I first met you I was focused on nothing but vengeance and my freedom. I did not greatly notice how anyone looked." Anders sighed, but Fenris squeezed his hand to let him know he was not finished. "But that was several years ago. I will not deny the conflict there has been between us, but... I like that you are tall. I did not expect that I would like it, but I do. There is something to the... earnestness of your voice, that captures my attention, even when you are talking nonsense."

Anders snorted.

"I like you hair," Fenris went on, reaching over to brush a strand of it back from Anders' face. "I like it especially when it is loose, as it is now."

He leaned in and pressed his lips against Anders'. "I like you eyes," he said, holding them as he pulled back from the kiss. "I cannot tell you that I liked them before because they seemed to pierce right through me and critique everything I did. But I like them now. I hope that you can see me, now."

Fenris looked away. He'd perhaps admitted too much, and it made him feel exposed. But if he meant what he said, then being exposed before Anders was something he would need to get used to. "I am sure you will not like everything you see. I hold no illusions about that. But I hope also, that you find some things that you can like in me."

"Well," Anders said, for once as awkward in speaking as Fenris felt. "Likewise, I suppose."

He cleared his throat. "But I said I would take care of you, and you haven't eaten anything yet," Fenris said, taking bread off the mage's plate and holding it up to him. "Eat, mage. After, I will need to go out. I cannot make a proper den with what you have here. But I'll stay until you have eaten your food and drunk your tea."

Anders laughed and took the bread from him. "Yes, ser!"


End file.
